In honor of Veterans Day, the Alliance rallied our troops to engage in a national media campaign! We encouraged all our partners to reach out to local press to share their community efforts towards ending homelessness for veterans, as well as to announce the Alliance’s release of a data update to the veterans homelessness report.

Sarah Kahn, Director of Field Mobilization, lead the charge on this campaign. She writes about it below.

Great work everyone! Last week’s media campaign was a great success!

Thirty-two Alliance partners from across the country participated in the media release of the 2008 Data and Policy Update to Vital Mission: Ending Homelessness Among Veteran. So far, our collective media outreach efforts have achieved around 100 national and local press hits, including published articles, editorials, and TV and radio news segments. What’s more is that many of these articles went beyond the regular data post – several articles made references to policy solutions, explored the causes and effects of veterans homelessness, and called on elected officials to take action to attack this problem.

So, what’s next?

We now have an opportunity to leverage our accomplishments as Congress considers key policy issues in the coming weeks.

How do we do that?

Show them that homelessness is an issue that’s important to your community; show and send them the articles about veterans homelessness in your state. Email the Senate offices pointing them to the veterans media coverage, and urge them so co-sponsor the Zero Tolerance for Veterans Homelessness Act, S. 1547, which is currently being considered in the Senate.

Veterans homelessness is something that we can end together – encourage your elected members to be a part of the solution to this national tragedy.____________________________________________